Cutting Parkway and Turnpike tolls

Aristide Economopoulos/The Star-LedgerGov. Chris Christie wants to take the toll hike for the planned trans-Hudson train tunnel and use it to repair roads and bridges.

Let public be heard
I recognize that in a heightened partisan environment, it’s easy to dismiss even good ideas as political grandstanding. But the idea of cutting tolls on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway — toll hikes that were originally intended to fund the Access to the Region’s Core mass transit tunnel — should be considered on its merits.

When increased toll funding for the ARC project was approved by the Turnpike Authority, there were individuals on both sides of the aisle who opposed it, even though it came from a Democratic governor’s administration. However, there was a process for public input and transparency as to how much money was needed, and how much would be spent. The public deserves that now.

Gov. Chris Christie’s proposal to divert more than $1 bilion into the Transportation Trust Fund from the increased ARC toll funding lacks both transparency and input. We don’t know if the toll funding intended for ARC will be adequate, or if additional toll increases will be required. And the public is being denied the right to provide input at public hearings. The governor should not assume commuters support repackaging the prior toll hike.

If Christie believes higher tolls are needed to fund his TTF plan, he should be required to make that case to the driving public — not divert funding for a project he has taken off the table. Ultimately, the decision to cancel the ARC project was an executive decision, and the plan to raise tolls to fund TTF will be an executive decision. But the public should be able to weigh in, and the governor should follow the existing process for dedicated toll hikes.State Sen. Nicholas J. Sacco (D-Hudson)

Merit pay’s flaws
It is unfortunate Gov. Chris Christie is sticking to the idea of implementing merit pay for teachers. Clearly, many people support merit pay. But far too many allow their negative feelings about the union to cloud their feelings about teachers. I would ask that people stop and consider the plethora of reasons that demonstrate why merit pay is ill-conceived.

For starters, rating teachers by test scores encourages them to merely “teach to the test,” placing more importance on memorization than actual learning. Merit pay also ignores the fact that many outside factors determine student test scores, factors that teachers have no control over — a student’s home life being the primary one.

Economists note that teachers are responsible for a 10 percent to 20 percent variation in test scores, while outside factors account for 60 percent of student-learning gains. Studies have also shown that test scores are subject to errors and that merit pay does nothing to improve schools. A Manhattan Institute study of 200 New York schools showed merit pay had no impact on test scores, and in some larger schools, scores actually went down.

Those reasons are a good starting point, but hardly represent all of the reasons why merit pay is a terrible idea. Paul Doro, Montclair

Not so smart
The Jan. 13 article “Lawmaker: Put a license plate on every bike in Jersey” should have started with a bold warning that no one laugh too hard at the moronic suggestion to license bicycles. It was no surprise that the idea came from an Essex County Democrat. The idea is absurd, stupid, idiotic and worse.

But perhaps the worst outcome is the impact on the credibility of our legislators. They really look stupid when they float harebrained ideas like this. Robert MacDonald, New Providence

Another tax
One of our state legislators wanted to require an annual $10 fee for a license plate on every bicycle in the state. As a senior, I chuckled when I read that the intent of the proposed legislation was for the safety of “senior citizens.” As always, this is all about the money. Our state Legislature’s slogan should be: “If it moves, tax it!”Allen D. Riley, South Plainfield

Stupid is as stupid does
Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker’s proposed legislation to license bicycles reinforced the “Forrest Gump” adage, “stupid is as stupid does” and oh, boy, was that proposed bicycle legislation stupid.

But there’s more. The Star-Ledger presented this “news” as its Page 1 headline. The Ledger spent almost as much newsprint on this nonsense as it did about the towns that went beyond the state spending cap. Now, let’s see, which was more important?

Finally, you have to add me to the list of “stupid” because I read the entire article about licensing bicycles. Shame on me.Paul Mogolesko, Wayne

An unfunded mandate for schools
Gov. Chris Christie has signed into law another example of dysfunctional politics, New Jersey-style.

The nearly unanimous passage of the school anti-bullying law (one legislator voted no) is full of good intentions. It’s also full of unfunded mandates and administrative burdens that school districts are ill-equipped to handle.

If our aim is to reduce growth in property taxes, then we need to think more strategically about how much we can ask of our schools. With the Christie administration and reformers pressing schools for greater accountability for student learning, Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike couldn’t stop themselves from overreacting to a few high-profile cases of bullying with a deluge of new regulations that will cut further into the time teachers, principals and other school leaders have to focus on what should be their main agenda: improving the quality of teaching and raising student achievement.Mark Gleason, South Orange